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Put gay bishops and the Soho Masses together and this is what you get

2013 January 11
by Paul Vallely

Politics may also explain the Roman Catholic shift.  The English hierarchy has been under pressure from Rome which has also been unhappy with Archbishop Nichols’ lukewarm welcome for the Ordinariate. That may explain why he has not yet been made a cardinal. Putting the Ordinariate into the very church used for gay Masses kills two birds with one stone.

It is often supposed that both Roman Catholic and Anglican critics of homosexuality draw a distinction between homosexual acts, which they see as sinful, and “the homosexual condition or tendency” which is not. But in fact Anglican opponents to celibate gay bishop seems to draw on the same ideological prejudice expressed by the present pope.

As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he wrote a 1986 Letter to Bishops On The Pastoral Care Of Homosexual Persons. It said that, while homosexual acts were “intrinsically disordered” and sinful, even homosexual inclination is a “tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder”. What the reactionary elements in both churches really want, it seems pretty clear, is for gay men and women in the pews to be cowed, quiet and ashamed.

The Church Times

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